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odd thingee..

you must be talkin' about one of those odd thingee made from a small bits of wood and queen excluder material that you hang from the front of a hive? if yes? then I think I have one on a shelf in the shop that has never been used.

swarm frames and hive scales

This spring at the local spring Bee equipt auction I bought a pile of old ABJ from the 70's and 80's. I really enjoy reading them and seeing old products. One big advertiser was the swarm frames and also hive scales. I had been thinking a hive scale would be just the thing for keeping track of honey flows and such. But the old Mags had several different vendors and styles and since I don't here any more about them aparently neither of these turned out to be worhtwhile. I haven't seen any adds for Queen traps so that must have been big before or after 70's-80's? I would be interested in hearing about the hive scales though from anyone that used them?

Jeff, I used my queen traps to keep them from swarming. It is like an Entrance Guard which the queen can not get through...however it was like a double decker, had two small cones that a queen can get through but couldn't get back into the hive and was trapped. Some called them "queen catchers".

There was a slider that you could slide open so she could get back in...although I never did, as she was trying to swarm, so I would place her and the bees in a new hive. The bees that would have swarmed with her would be all over the front, trying to get to her.

Easier than chasing them down in a tree some place... but yes it's an old timer thing I guess...

Eagle, Thanks for the info.. If it works stick with it I have one swarm that landed in a stack of supers I need to get taken care of. That would be handy having the queen and bees sitting there in one ball...

Its a old piece of equipment that was used by not so well thought out beekeepers.

Tell me how one was to keep the queen from leaving, as a swarm prevention, thus saving time, and needing to check them often, and this was instead of weekly inspections which is done for swarm prevention. I find doing nothing but using a device that trapped the queen from leaving, in the attempts of keeping a hive from swarming, not good management.

And in doing this to the queen, you clog the hive up with drones also.

As for trapping the queen after she mated, and keeping her from entering....why? Who has that much time? So your going to sit around your apiary installing and using this device, waiting for queens to land on the board, and for what purpose?

The only thing I heard this thing used for that made any sense, as little as it is, was the trapping of drones for harvesting. And that was easily replaced by other less work procedures as just dumping bees through a screen and collecting the drones.

There is a reason why they do not sell them anymore. They are a waste! But like the old-timer sitting at the local meeting, refusing to learn anything, becuase "I kept bees for 50 years dangit!", it takes along time for these items to fade into just memories.....

Swarm season has long past, you won't need this thing again until next spring. Send one to me, let me look it over and take pictures and measurements.

I'll send it back when I'm done. I'll pay the postage both ways.

I just want a close look to see if I can adapt it for use in a trap out. I've got two trap out jobs waiting for the winter months (winter is the best time here in FL due to the SHB in the summer.)

I've seen the picture from the other post in this thread, so I have an idea of how it works, but as we all know the devil is in the details. Like once she is in there, how do we get her out. Little things like that.